


when you love someone

by punkrockbadger



Category: This Is Us (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Introspection, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockbadger/pseuds/punkrockbadger
Summary: [Spoilers for 1.11] Promises are only important to people who have something to lose, and by God, do you have so much to lose.





	

Sometimes he doesn’t have to hit you for it to hurt.

“Look, you were right about me. You’ve always been right about me. I’m never going to be any good.”

You look him right in the eye, and it almost hurts more for it, seeing the grin on his face, seeing the vindication in his eyes. The pain echoes within you, a drumbeat alongside your heart. He’s right. He's always been right. You try not to let the words hurt, try to remind yourself you are playing his game, playing into his hands for your benefit, but even shaping the words, even giving them life sends pain radiating outward through you, leaves it to build ugly, dark nests in the softest, most tender parts of you. Parts Bec loves, parts she sets alight with her very presence to shine through the cracks in the walls he forced you to build.

You, you who claimed you would leave at eighteen and never speak to him again, that you would be better than him, are right under his thumb again. Where you always were, where you always will be.

Where you belong, that soft, traitorous voice that lived on your shoulder all your childhood says. 

Isn't this where you belong, Jack?

You can feel the familiar bony hands of panic pressing into your ribs, but you do not break eye contact. Your pride is the one thing you have left. You can look him in the eye, make this hurt for him too. Some part of him must be aching, mustn’t it, seeing you like this? Seeing his son in pain must dig something out of that cavernous heart-shaped hole inside him, something human. 

You've already fallen in love with your three promised children, these little miracles you'll get to hold. 

How has he had you for so long and not felt a single thing?

You never thought you would be here again, but here you are, bringing old, worn patterns back to life. It’s like treads in a carpet—no matter how far you run, no matter how hard you try to escape, life brings you back here. 

He gives you the money. 

For a moment, you can see some shard of humanity in him behind the monstrous façade he loves to present the world with. You put it in your pocket and carry it out of the house with you, without a single look back, because if this is what you have to do to be better than him, you will do it. If this is what you have to do to be a better husband, a better father, a better person, you will do it. 

You promised your mother that you wouldn't let him break you and you won't. 

Promises are only important to people who have something to lose, and by God, do you have so much to lose.

You don’t realize you forgot the ice cream until you get home, but maybe it wasn’t about that anyway.


End file.
